fandomsecrets | (no subject)

The new commenting system on LJ sucks, I think we can all agree (and all the other prospective design changes seem to be speeding it down the path of no return). Knowing LJ, it's probably not going to change no matter how much anybody complains, and as this comm is heavily based on user comments, it's probably time to consider moving. Dreamwidth is the closest to LJ's old format and has a large fandom base, and seems the best alternative for now.

So -

[Poll #1804842]

Other thoughts?

(As a note, I'm completely willing to either stay or move. Updating the comm is easy enough for me either way.)

ETA - It's not only about subject lines. Others have written up potential problems better than I could:
http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html?thread=7005874#t7005874
http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html?thread=6261682#t6261682
ETA 4 - http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html?thread=7952050#t7952050

ETA 2 - For those worried about possibly needing to make DW accounts to comment, if a move happens: you don't need one! OpenID will let you comment as an LJ user (in the same way Facebook users can comment on LJ).

ETA 3 - For those worried about missing updates: I can crosspost to LJ to let you know a post is up, I don't mind that (it's like a minute of extra work, no problem) - if the DW move happens though, the comments would be over there.

ETA 5 - Apparently, this is what we're getting next year.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Haha, y'know what, the lack of a subject line actually is a plus for me - I generally read all of the comments on the site and then any subsequent ones via email subscription, which basically meant that I couldn't read in gmail since every new subject line means that the comment gets a new conversation. And sometimes the font gets super small on the iPod so it's just hard to read there.

But, yeah, that's just me. And this comment was probably pretty annoying to read since I'm not joining in on the collective bitchfest so... sorry I guess? (Sincerely sorry, not snarky sorry.)

No, that's ok! You have the right to say whatever you want, even it's (gasp!) positive. I was just pointing out that using the first line of your comment line as your subject line doesn't work the same was as a true subject line. And, yeah, when you point out the issue with subject lines making new conversations, I can see why that would be an issue for you.

Speaking of positive: I rather like the little "new comment" tag that they've added. (-:

Yeah. I probably also don't spend a lot of time on comms that use/need subject lines beyond the first post of a thread so it'd always be searchable.

The new comment tag is awesome! I actually haven't read my alerts for this entire thread - I just hit f5 when my iPod beeps. Which kinda ruins my point about following via email, but I followed via email because it's impossible to know which comments are new, soooo....

Yeah, Those tend to be RPGs (which I don't participate in) and kink memes (I've really only participated in one for any length of time).

Yeah, it's nice to be able to just look down the page and see what's new. You don't have to try to memorize how many posts there are so you know there's more the next time, or keep track or names or times ("I last checked at 3:00, and that post was made at 3:02, so it's new!") or anything else. So that's one definite improvement, especially for a comm as busy as this one!

And even on kinkmemes, I still automatically expand the child comments of a post tagged with a pairing I wanna read - not everyone uses subject lines to denote fills.

Yeah, that's what I don't get about why f!s should move - subject lines are primarily used to denote OP here.

Well, the thing is, if one is only wanting to read/comment on certain secrets, the way one figure out which comment thread goes with which secret is by checking through the comment headers for the relevent threads. Heck, even in the old days, before each secret had its own dedicated thread (and that's a great idea, btw, Technophile, I really like it a lot), the headers would be used to indicate which secrets one would be replying to.

So instead of wasting time and my extremely limited bandwidth (I know, what am I even doing here then, right? XD) in reading through literally thousands of comments when I may only be interested in 10% of them, I just make a note of which secrets I want to follow up on, scan through the headers to that secret's thread, and away we go.

---Which LJ just completely annihilated. Awesome. Thanks, guys. That helped a lot. >

Except Technophile uses the body of the comment to label the secrets, not the subject line - that is left blank. It's not like the starting comment of a thread automatically collapses or anything like that, so it's quite searchable. Cuz, yeah, I write down the numbers of the secrets I'm amused by in notepad and then just scroll until I find the comment thread as well.